


Chains

by janetcarter



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Gen, Imprisonment, Sexual Assault, cabin fever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:07:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23866495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janetcarter/pseuds/janetcarter
Summary: She could escape the confines of her jail cell, but not the impact of her isolation.
Kudos: 4
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Chains

**Author's Note:**

> For the Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt "Cabin Fever."

In those days, Na'Toth would've given anything to feel Narn's warm sun on her skin once more. It was something she had taken for granted, even in her days dodging Centauri soldiers and bombings. They had not yet shattered her will, then. She did not think they ever could.

Years of her life were lost to a Centauri jail cell, and for what? The war had ceased. The Centauri simply did not want to rid themselves of their toy. If they could retain control in even one cold, dark corner, they would close their ravenous fists around it, around her, and never let go.

All she could do was claw at the bricks of her prison until her nails had become bloodied nubs. What she would've done for a chisel to pass the time, to dig her way out, to stab a guard in the eye. But for the first time in her life, she was powerless to do anything of the sort.

A rotation of guards provided her with meager portions of food and water. Such things forced her survival, but of course, at a cost.

She had tried to tell her keepers apart at first, learning the weight of footsteps and pattern of duty. It was all she could do to brace herself for what was to come. But eventually, in the haze of groping and bruising and _filth_ … they might as well have all been the same man.

In the beginning, she still had enough spirit to fight back. But when her teeth rotted, she could no longer bite their foul flesh. When her muscles atrophied, she could only lie there and let them take the only thing she had left.

In response to the brutality of her isolation, she had become numb. And with such numbness, her anger atrophied, too. What point was there to anger when she could hardly spare the energy to breathe beneath her chains? What point was there to _anything_ when Narn had certainly been reduced to ash?

No one was left to save her; not even herself.

By the time she had been proven wrong, it was too late. In the place between her ribs where the hunger of vengeance once burned, she had simply wasted away. And in its place sprouted something she refused to examine too closely, but something that felt almost like fear. It took root deep in the pit of her decaying stomach, and curled into chasm left behind by the Narn she used to be.

As Na'Toth stepped into the shade of her new property in Moxtoke, the heavy gates clanged shut behind.

She would never be their prisoner again.


End file.
